The bracket in Joltfreaks kit does not come predriled for the mounting location. This gives you the chance to find the best location for your car.

Here's a pic, 1/2" plate //www.minimania.com/cars4sale/11965/Wanted__Part

Thanks for chiming in- For everyone's benefit, were you not satisfied with the position the brackets put the calipers or was the brackets not fully fitted correctly when you received them? I like those Ronals, good lookin wheel

I am the one using one of Joltfreaks kit with 10" Ronals. Just to be clear, I did not have to make my own caliper brackets. In the process of trying to find the best postion to mount the bracket I had drilled too many holes in the bracket so I had another set made to replace them. That is when I started using 1/4' plywood to make the test fit brackets as I can make several till I found the best location. Then used the metal ones for the final assembly. 

Thread hijak moved to: //www.minimania.com/msgThread/114817/1/1/Let_s_make_our_own_disk_brakes_for_10__wheels

Yes, VW rear also, it's frightfully easy, my front's are pretty cool as they move the caliper more inwards which is the biggest interference problem - 10" wheels and the caliper. No mechanical braking advantage over S brakes or 4 pots, it's not about having to shell out gobs of cash & time to switchout swivelhubs, stubaxles and then procure and pay for all the other brake stuff to have Mini disk brakes, it's more about throwing away the drum brakes and bolting up a set of disks onto the drumbrake swivel and axle. Much easier, faster and LOTS cheaper to convert the 4 or 5 Mini's I'm in contact with to bolt-on type disk brakes. It's about getting everyone with crappy brakes to be a little safer and to help out our hobby, mostly for the hobby. There are lots of 13" wheeled Mini's with brackets on drum brake hubs out there. Like I mentioned earlier, 10" is my goal.

Someone just emailed me that they are using the Joltfreak setup with 10" Ronals (this is the first person that I have heard that is actually using the joltfreak kit with 10"ers) but he had to make up his own caliper brackets. There are apparently a few people out there who have been successful with the 10" wheels, and some swear the 10" wheels will never work with his kit. I think I have found a readily available and modern caliper (and loaded with pads and on clearance) that has a smaller profile than the Honda one so stand by... 

ssuperfly in your conversion for 10", what is the advantage over the S brakes or the 4-pots?  rice?

Because that Rabbit thing of yours sounds cool - Did I read correctly that you have it in the rear as well?  

I find that figuring out how to post pictures on this forum are outside my bandwidth, have other things going on like actually how to develop disk brake conversions that first work, then fit under 10"ers. 10"er's are my ultimate goal. I have 7" 7.5" & 8" disk setups but for the Mini community in general, we need a workable aftermarket setup that works with drum brake hubs n axles. If you think this stuff is heresy, dangerous and or stupic, please move along, start your own flame thread.

Joltfreak has not improved his design, sales literature or website, scuttle is that his stuff wont fit under 10" wheels, it's actually not his design, he was given the dimensions and basic how to from down under and they got it from Finnish ice racers (this is common lore/knowledge in the deepest of Mini forums that exist outside of Minimania). I have a talented machinist, mechanic and racer who's literally been doing stuff like this for 75 yrs that owes me a favor who is helping and working on it.... I'll start a thread when I figure out which way we will go as parts, $ and time are consumed. That's the cool stuff.

The Fiesta conversion is actually an upgrade of a disk brake setup using "beffer" fiesta calipers to convert 8.5" brakes to fit under 10" wheels. Not the direction I'm going. Not so interesting to what I want to accomplish.

There used to be a You tube video on this conversion miniaddicts.co.uk maybe.

ssuperfly that sounds like some pictures are in order... certainly deserves its own thread....

Joltfreak makes a disk brake kit that uses a drum brake drive pieces and adds vented Honda disks n calipers. Supposed to work with 10" wheels but seems 12 x 13's end up being used. I have 4 wheel disk setup sourced from VW Rabbit (solid disks) on e drum brake front end. Backing plates for drums swapped out with fabricated 1/4" plate brackets, these brackets are 2 piece which moves the caliper inboard another 1/4", I guess because the VW disk hats are a lil deeper than the civic. Mine needs 13" wheels. I need just the brackets from a Joltfreak setup if anyone has any. I have the civic disks already machined. Going to look at a Geo Metro vented disk with caliper also. There is info out there about using early Fiesta cavaliers on turned down 8.5" disks to fit in 10" wheels. Junkyard disk brakes are doable but fitting them in 10" wheels is the holy grail

Jean, you have a good point about heat and brake fade. My first Mini, a Countryman with twin-leading front drums, was really bad for brake fade.

Bigger brakes is also for heat dissipation. Most mini brakes will have enough braking power to lock the wheels once. Try that multiple times from high speed and that changes. Also with more power, each time you accelerate you get to a higher speed than you would with less power hence more heat to dissipate.

So if you don't use the additional power of the engine, you don't need more brakes. If you do use it then there is a good chance you will need more braking at some point unless you like pushing the brake pedal to the floor with little in terms of slowing down.

Okay, but the limits of decelleration are basically the amount of friction on the road, which is dependent on tire adhesion - the patches of rubber and the amount of weight pressing them against the road. If/when the tires begin to slide, no amount of bigger brakes will be any help. If there's no change in tires, and if the brakes (agreed a BIG IF in some Minis) arecapable of locking up the wheels, then no increase in brakes is necessary... until you increase the wheels.

It seems to me that when people add big power, to get better traction they add bigger wheels, so to me the real issue is the bigger wheels. Bigger diameter wheels impart more foot-pounds of torque against the brakes. Wider tires apply a better patch to the road (except in winter, which is a whole other discussion!), also making harder work for brakes.

As I said the key is adhesion to the road, as thousands around Kentucky, Georgia etc. recently discovered.

Bleed throughly and see if you still hear a squish at thw pedal.  I recently had a newish master that sat too long.  It wouldn't drip fluid down the base of the master and onto the pedal, but would let air into the system giving a "squish" sound.  Swapped in a brand new master and problem solved.  Imo unless you're racing, approaching corners hard at high speeds requiring quick reduction in speed, big brakes are over kill.  Standard disc and rear drums, booster or not, is more than enough to stop 1600lbs of mini.

When you increase power you also increase acceleration. For safety reasons increased acceleration should be matched with increased deceleration. Bigger brakes. If you were to increase power without increasing acceleration there would be no need to increase braking.

Kelley

Techie stuff:

Electric locomotives use dynamic braking to regenerate electricity which feeds back up into the supply power lines. Diesel locomotives are actually diesel-electric: a diesel engine drives a geneator, which then drive electric motors attached to the axles. When in dynamic braking, the axle motors become generators, and the generated power is radiated as heat through vrey large resistor elements (like giant toasters). (and they don't "choo-choo"!). We're talking 4400 HP per engine x up to 4 or 5 units per train. Remembering thet the horse-power in our Mini world is "brake horse-power", and considering that the electric motors on a train can geneerate as much generating power as they can handle under load, that can add up to about 22,000 HP. That's about 16,412 kilowatts of electricity per freight train.

Kinda makes hybrid cars with regenative braking look puny.

I run 7.5 Cooper S with super fins rear and a late boosted master with the torque tube crossover. I like to drive from the left. I'm still using old disc which I have surface ground on a flywheel grinder. I find them to do everything I need. I'm very bad about late braking. I go up the ramp off the interstate to my shop around 75 mph and brake at the last sec to stop at the light at the top of the hill. I think Scargo remembers riding with me once. The brake on his side of the car was applied well before I went for mine.

I don't know much about choo choos but thought the engine runs a generator that drives electric motors. I guess that's a hi bred of sorts. Steve (CTR) 

Can somebody explain why it is considered necessary to upgrade brakes when HP is increased?Brakes retard and stop a mass in motion. More mass requires more stopping capability (brakes).
 Unless the new  power unit is substantially heavier, higher capacity brakes shouldn't be needed for a Mini.

In a car, unless it is an automatic and a poorly-trained driver uses his left foot for braking, one must remove one's right foot from the throttle to apply the brakes. If the clutch is not depessed, then engine braking comes into play, where the power of the engine will actually assist stopping. (Railroads use dynamic braking - usng the 'engine' to slow a train as being more effective than hundreds of wheels with brakes.)

My twin cam stops well on S- 7.5 inch brakes,green stuff pads, wilwood masters , minifin drums and a proportioning valve. When I upgrade ,it will be to Performance Fiction pads and alloy LD-20 calipers.

What kind of junk yard bits fit on these mini's? Mine being a 84' Austin with 8.4"